July 2010 – No. 14

The Heart of the Teacher

‘Some teachers do not deserve a bluebird to fly though their window’. Anon

Graeme Taylor is a recently retired secondary school teacher.  He taught for 38 years in Victoria, mainly VCE Physics, but he also taught Maths and Chemistry to VCE and Biology to Year 10.

He has a wonderful reputation as an expert on pupil teacher relations.  Therefore, when I caught up with him again this month, I could not resist the urge to give him an interview on his speciality!

He was a little reluctant at first but then he began to share some fascinating insights that even surprised him!

‘The heart of the teacher’ is so hard to talk about, it is so intuitive, so impossible to measure but this month I want to share with you from some of Graeme’s enormous store of experience.

Graeme taught in a variety of schools. One of the most exciting and formative in his early years as a teacher, (1975 – 1983), was Hollingsworth College, in north-east Melbourne.  This institution was founded by a passionate teacher, Keith Hollingsworth. Keith was an ‘all-or-nothing’ type.  Very soon the college had students of all ages up to year 12.  Not satisfied, Keith opened their facilities to adults in the evenings – the Hollingsworth Institute.  So Graeme cut his teeth as a teacher during the daytime with students expelled from everywhere else, teenagers who did not want to learn, Keith’s college being the only one willing to have them; while at night Graeme taught adults from all walks of life who willingly wanted to improve their prospects.

Keith, a very obsessive man, loved to share his understanding with his students.  Graeme described him as ‘loving his teaching’, however, he felt Keith’s approach was not the best as it was so markedly a ‘one way’ process from ‘teacher to student’.  Keith loved what he did.  If presented with a potential student who wanted an obscure language, Keith would go out and buy a book and teach himself the language so that he could enrol the new student and teach them himself!

Sadly, the college did not survive.  Keith’s obsessions changed to a study of probability about which he wrote a number of books.  As so much of the college depended so directly on Keith, who was now no longer able to devote the attention to the students he had previously; the enrolments began to fall and eventually, the college no longer viable, had to close.  This was no doubt providential for Graeme as he had to move on.  He subsequently took up positions in more regular places of learning but I believe it was here that Graeme found his heart for teaching.

After learning about Graeme’s early days as a teacher, we then began to explore what Graeme believed was the core essence of a good teacher, what in fact was ‘the heart of a teacher’?

‘You must know your stuff’! The teacher must know their material really well.  It’s not going to work if the teacher is simply one chapter ahead of the class!  Not only must the teacher know their material but they need to be passionate about it.  The students will see right through a teacher that is not fully engaged with their material.

‘You must know where your material fits in the world’.  In other words you must have a firm grasp of how your subject informs and complements many other disciplines.  The teacher must be adept at relating their material into mainstream knowledge.  For example, Graeme needed to be able to debate, without notes, how academic Physics informs the debate about global warming even though Geography might be the natural setting for such a discussion.   This was a great foundation for discovering more about ‘the heart of a teacher’.  Then we moved into Graeme’s most profound observations.

As he continued to talk, his words took me into one of his classrooms. ‘You have to see each student in the same way as he sees you’.  The student is perhaps, one of 28, one of a crowd, however, through his eyes he only sees you, a single person.  So the challenge for the teacher is to see each of your students as if there is no one else in the room!  Can you, in a split second, give the degree of attention to one student that makes them feel as though they are there alone having a personal one-on-one tutor’s session with you?

What a challenge!  What a wonderful outcome if you can achieve it.  So the explanation of the new topic, aimed at the average student, has to connect with each one simultaneously.  This means the teacher needs to watch, ever so carefully, to catch the smallest evidence of engagement on the part of the one.  Then, with lightning speed, the teacher seeks to serve a reinforcement to the one as their eyes traverse the room.

It is too glib to say the teacher must simply ‘see each kid as an individual’.  Yes they must but more than that, the teacher needs to see them in the context of the whole group.  They need to be cognisant of the dynamics coming from the group and the dynamics they are bringing into the group.  The teacher needs to expend a huge amount of energy on making these connections.  It’s exhausting work!  There is no other profession that makes such huge demands on a daily basis.  Many have to present reports but a teacher must connect with their involuntary audience class by class and day by day.

Developing this theme a step further, each student sees their teacher not only as an individual but also as part of the staff team or faculty.  How you relate to your colleagues is watched so keenly.  Are you seen as a collection of individuals with no real sense of belonging or are you a fired up, passionate, energetic and united team all playing like a well oiled football team for the ultimate prize, the realisation of the full potential of each student.

‘Have a sense of humour’. This does not mean that the teacher has a grand repertoire of the best jokes that they can deliver with the speed and accuracy of an automatic weapon.  Effective humour is delivered seamlessly in context.  It is integral with the work not a diversion from the work.

Graeme then delivered two wonderful analogies for great teaching.  He said that ‘you can’t drive a car on instruments alone’.  Imagine the most sophisticated technology possible with sensors for everything.  Then imagine driving with your eyes down on the dials, never once glancing out through the windows.  You may be pretty accurate for a little while but you will soon crash on account of the infinite variety of variables that even the best instruments can’t detect.  The teacher needs to read their class continuously.

A second analogy is that ‘the tongue lasts longer than the teeth’. Here Graeme was discussing the discipline tension.  A set of rigid rules are like teeth which are brittle and can break or chip.  Discussion and understanding with the tongue is much more malleable.  I have never met anyone who needed to get their tongue repaired at the dentists!  Graeme was not advocating a liaise-fair approach to discipline, far from it.  He was calling for very firm boundaries that start with the self-discipline of the teacher.  They must dress appropriately, get to class on time and return assignments on time.  All in all Graeme’s emphasis was on the teacher’s modelling of discipline rather than their imposition of discipline.

A principal once asked Graeme how it was that he never had a problem with ‘10B’ while all the rest of the staff did. Graeme’s answer, ‘I don’t know why.  I am just blessed that they don’t argue with me.  I don’t give detentions; we don’t get to situations that warrant detentions’.  I don’t believe that Graeme was too soft, far from it.  Rather, he was very quick and skilled at defusing situations before they became conflicts.

‘Some teachers do not deserve a bluebird to fly though their window’, said Graeme stating an anonymous quote.  He went on to describe some teachers that can become so locked into their program that they miss the unexpected, they fail to grasp the opportunities that come by for sheer enjoyment.  The quotes were flying now; ‘he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity’s sunrise’, William Blake 1757-1827.

Graeme was so comfortable with his material, so interested in his students and flexible enough to be able to turn the unexpected into a teaching opportunity.  These can be a current affair, the unexpected event in the life of one of the students or literally an unexpected visitor into the classroom.  All these offer wonderful opportunities for building relationships with the students.

It is wonderful when the students come in with an idea they know more about than their teacher. ‘Let them teach you’, said Graeme.  The teacher needs to be humble enough to admit they don’t know everything!  ‘Now you are working shoulder to shoulder with the kids’.

Finally, Graeme concluded with the importance of reflection.  All your experience is only of any value if you regularly reflect upon it.  This could be considered ‘the heart of a teacher’, knowing your stuff, seeing student’s as they see you, opening your classroom to bluebirds flying in through the window and always reflecting upon your experience.